she might never have made it she wasn't at the top of the candidate's shortlist but eventually she did blast off shouting triumphantly. as the flight began she was unable to switch to manual control but after three days the world greeted the first woman cosmonaut. six years later as a motorcade passed through the kremlin gates a man opened fire and nine bullets she was untouched. valentyn a biography reads a little like a fairy tale

a soviet cinderella. a goal from a poor family in a remote province rocketed to such heights but only the stars were above. the first woman cosmonauts go off was the vostok six spacecraft which she first tried on in june one thousand nine hundred sixty three it immediately elevated her to the soviet elite. their official call fine was sego the name was to stay with valentino forever long after the triumph it's still followed her around the world. even in childhood valentino had dreamed about adventure and travel although her earlier ambitions were confined to the. live goodness of there was a real way track not far from our house. and my biggest dream was to become a train driver. i wanted to drive those huge trains.

i thought the train driver was the happiest person in the world he could see all the big cities and travel all over the country that i. the family was from a small country village where i was a milkmaid and her father was a tractor driver. broke out with he was conscripted into the army. family out of his death when valentino was less than three years old. i belong to the generation of children of the war. we know what war grief. of course we didn't realize it then but we know what it's like for a mother to cry over a telegram saying her husband is dead. oh mother got fifty roubles for each of us a loaf of bread cost two hundred rubles after the war so you see she couldn't even afford bread with that allowance but we never saw her cry.

after the war the family moved to jaroslaw. went to school until seventh grade after that she went to work first in a factory then the weaving mill at the same time she also attended the local trade school and later she joined the local parachute club. there were notices everywhere you looked they said welcome to the parachute sport club i could see parachutists as i went to work along the river bank they jumped on the other side of the river lots of them but i don't think anyone could be unmoved by the sight of people jumping. journey into space again with parachuting. you know that's my i made my first jump on may twenty first one thousand nine hundred fifty nine was i scared of course your first jump is very

special you realize that you're jumping off something solipsists you have to overcome your fears. i open the door and put my foot on the step and then i push myself forward is that the sport like this once you've made your first jump you can never stop. to discover didn't always achieve particularly good grades for jumps average just fall or even three out of five. i often used to find her at the far end of the field where she'd landed after a jump she'd be crying. me i never cried why should i. the job of assembling and training the first group of soviet cosmonauts was delegated to air force vice commander nicole like a monument the idea of sending women into space is also attributed to him. we need

young strong girls in good shape so we can train them for the flight within five to six months the main reason for such rapid training is to leave the americans behind . these were the criteria for recruiting women bage up to thirty fight up to one hundred seventy centimeters wait up to seventy kilograms no less than two hundred hours flying time or fifty parachute jumps when selection began valentino already had a good score ninety jumps she also had one other advantage she was head of the local communist party youth committee at that time only the most ideologically minded of people could be considered for space. it was here at the hours level parachute club than airforce officer arrived to select candidates for the soviet space program. won't be in there and we noticed that he watched us jumping working together him and then he called us in separately for an interview. the cold

war was at its peak both the us and the u.s.s.r. were always trying to prove that their political system was best everything concerning space was highly classified. when valentino was chosen to be one of the cosmonaut candidates not even her mother was allowed to know. that the bill has been done with the i have to make up some story to tell my mother it was easy with a little but with mom my me i invented this story. mom you know i've been invited to become a reserve member of the u.s. is parachuting team in moscow. a small team of women was brought together within the all male department city had yet to be built it was just a regular military base with a high fence forty kilometers from moscow. she was very mature when she joined the unit she knew exactly what she wanted from life but

. did everything she could to avoid being discharged from the space program. through a new. the women's team was officially formed on the twelfth of march nine hundred sixty two five thousand candidates just five was shortlisted. over mathematician valentino. weaver. teacher. all of them had to undergo extensive preparation including physical training which was exactly the same as for the men. doctors watched every training session very closely they couldn't agree amongst themselves as to whether a woman's body could withstand the intense forces of blast off the weightlessness or the stress of returning from orbit. one of the most demanding tests was the centrifuge with its extreme g.

forces not all of them would pass. after the task to get red spots on your skin and their cause by believing under the skin when small vessels burst. by this time got in had already been in space along with government itself. and. these were four nationally recognized heroes. from god and was always smile. and easygoing and often seen visiting the woman's team they once asked him about his most frightening experience during his flight. that if you believe that the worst thing was when he was walking along a red carpet and neugebauer with his lace fund on he was afraid that he was going to trip and fall over it in front of everyone from. the news reel caught this very moment as good got him with his shoelaces and walks towards the soviet leaders to

report on the first successful space flight. the one person with absolute authority of the cosmonauts. the chief engineer it was thanks to him that the soviet union became the pioneers of space. you probably only sergei could write you off could have criticised and loved us so much at the same time we were both afraid of him and we adored him we simply loved him you can't use your parents and we were so unbelievably lucky to have been mentored by cornell. contemporaries say that he didn't support the idea of women in space at first. initially he thought that only male air force pilot should become cosmonauts but later he agreed to send a woman and it was him who supported valentino to discover his candidacy although the final decision would be made not by chief engineer totally off but by the

soviet leader nikita khrushchev. thanks to nikita khrushchev's intervention and with the tacit approval of surrogate call your despise an unfavorable medical commission report valentino was appointed the number one cosmonaut among the women valentino social origins plays a major part in the decision on the whole she wasn't the best choice. we're loser they choose for them. it over do you know why she was a pilot she graduated from moscow state university she passed course in higher mathematics i thought it would be but it turned out to be over. from the highest office she represented her country as head of the soviet women's committee and travelled the world as leader of the friendship society. there was the one moment that could have brought it to an end. the frosty

morning of january the twenty second nine hundred sixty nine this was to be a happy day. a government delegation including to go over was to welcome cosmonauts returning home from a routine flight they immediately headed for the kremlin. yep a sword you knew i was sitting in the middle of the car you know really valentino and nicholai of war behind me yeah i saw an officer in a blue uniform step out of the crowd and he started shooting up the car not you figured. it was behind me and to be out and covered her body with a soul. and that's the truth. i was sitting on the side he shot at you know they found nine bullets under my seat . i probably survived because i had

a sick mother that needed my help. and also a small daughter you might think probably knew. this was to have. approached the motorcade wearing a police uniform his intention was to kill brezhnev. but at the wrong the one carrying the cosmonauts. he was immediately arrested and. same. stream quality. favorites. if you're away from.

your mobile device you can watch on t.v. anytime anywhere. with. technology innovation all the developments around russia we. covered. mission free accreditation free transport charges free. range means free risk free stereotype free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects and free media and on to our t. dot com. i

would rather ask questions to people in positions of power instead of speaking on their behalf and that's why you can find life show larry king now right here on r.t. question more. arguments over who was best prepared to be the first woman in space continued up until mid may nine hundred sixty three. led the group supporting titus cover and was later joined by your ego got in. on may twenty first nine hundred sixty three the

training center welcomes the state committee. and there we were sitting at a long table that was covered with the red fabric and one of the rooms at the training center. we had already been given the rank of a junior lieutenant so we were sitting there by the wall in our new uniforms shivering with anticipation that. chief engineer. could see that everyone had already guessed the final decision and he addressed by nobody over. my comrade kind of money would you be offended and i said yes i would i'd be very upset. and he said that's right i would be too but he said he'll all go into a. sadly that did not come true the first woman's team. made it to space. others spent several years in training until finally they

heard the verdict one hundred sixty nine. knew they expressed gratitude for our willingness to serve our country but that our services for no longer required so we were disbanded. country under. which had made the first joint space flights into orbit involved stocks three and four stop for. now there was a new goal for the first time in history a woman would fly into space. the mission would begin with because vostok five and then tell us. over would blast off with a stock six. on june the fourteenth nine hundred sixty three at five pm local time. because flew into space. the fifteenth of june twenty four hours before total scope as planned flight. doctors assure us

that terrorist has a good appetite and has even gained some weight but i still think that she has done a lot she looks pale and seems a little agitated. the sixteenth of june nineteenth sixty three these pictures went all around the world. to discover spacecraft launched with nothing untoward. you've got them so when the ship took off and i heard the command starts it's i shouted. hey sky take off your hat i'm on my way yet to be. to show his relatives only heard of a flight from the radio. he has a good record i had finished my first year at the trade college and there were six

or seven girls in the room where i was living in the dormitory on the radio they said that volunteer at their school had flown into space i was shocked that was my cousin i think girls that's my cousin and they didn't believe me and births were like of it was hard to convince them. that very day to discover spoke to soviet leader nikita khrushchev. systems our working perfectly. i feel excellent. i can hear you. very well your call signal the siegel but let me call you simply valentina are. very happy and proud that our girl a girl from the soviet union is the first woman to fly into space and to operate such cutting edge equipment. but not everything was quite so perfect

with that cutting edge equipment. i spoke several times with. i heard she was tired but she wouldn't admit it twice she tried to orient the spacecraft and she honestly said she'd failed to do that. was nervous even though it was only a test procedure. couldn't do it she couldn't operate the spacecraft manually. today the former cosmonaut claims it was because of an engineering fault a ship don't you see there was an error in the program when it was supposed to land instead of descending from orbit the ship was programmed to ascend. i entered the data center from earth into the program and was able to land safely and i might. the doctors had a different opinion because the seagull didn't feel well on the way to conditions she wasn't accurately executing her commands from earth your ears would the first

twenty four hours were really bad for her she felt. but nobody flies up there feels great. at that time the first soviet woman in space could not afford mistakes nor to reveal any weakness she was to be a legend even before leaving the ground it was much later that there would be speculation about the problems with that flight and the fact that she fell asleep at the appropriate time. there was also talk of two broken pencils that had allegedly prevented her from keeping proper records in the ship's log book. there was only one pen so no it didn't break so it's just you know sometimes they asked me to deny the story but i don't think there's any need to have that an

honest person would never believe them. you must understand that those were the first space flights we had to prove that a human could function even aboard a spacecraft in conditions that. there are certain professional issues that shouldn't be discussed in public. these things. work and during every spaceflight even today. the first female cosmonauts lending was far from smooth. it was very clearly stated that she was not to raise her head you're strapped in the capsule and you must lie still. well a woman's curiosity got the better of our screen when the hatch opened she looked at that moment she was objected but her helmet had the bridge of her nose.

so we bailed out and our ships had their own parachutes and i thought they were supposed to open at a height of four kilometers while ours were at seven kilometers. when i looked down what did i see my god there was a lake i thought there's no way i'm going to fall there but what could i do. this if the wind was extreme up to seventeen metres a second well i even had to stand on my head and fasten the parachute locking clips . the moment she landed she was immediately surrounded by locals. got a few people brought her some food like boiled potatoes and milk. and handed out her own food as souvenirs to them a lot of the work she shouldn't have done because we had to keep metabolic records of the flight how much she consumed terex creations what quantities and so on.

but she gave everything away so we couldn't analyze it. but wouldn't you when you. are of the moment behave. above all she had written a life. a woman blasted into space for the first time in sixty three rushes and balanchine a terrorist brought on a body on the drive i didn't i said but yet i have been alone in space for quite some time just so it was especially rewarding to be joined in orbit by such a charming comrade as valentino terrace cove. and i hope your wife didn't hear that . if you get it i'm so happy to have named granted the honor of being the

first woman in the world to go into space so. birth was he always emphasized like that women are the weaker sex. now here you can see a typical sub with a woman who in the early days of the version i see is weak so look at what she has shown to america's consonance she showed them who's whom which. thank there on the podium in red square. stood shoulder to shoulder with underdone nicholai of. it said the garden into its to host of the perhaps they should also be a first space couple. the wedding was organized and of course just personal supervision . the couple had a baby girl who to risk overnight killing off the home of. these

are rare pictures of the first woman in space bringing her daughter to a video connection with country and make a love who was once again you know a bit. daddy. garden and. after nineteen years of marriage. to live eventually divorced. doesn't like to speak either of her first marriage or second to the soviet defense ministry chiefs. the first woman cosmonaut now has two grandsons and. the oldest finished school this year and wants to be an economist. first my eldest son wanted to be a pilot but in time he ended up changing its mind. lots of the youngest claims he

wants to be a cosmonaut will be. like that if he says he'll do something maybe he will and maybe he won't. my grandmother and my grandfather. did the trampoline i wanted to try it. on the trampoline is my favorite hobby. just like fifty years ago. to spare in a regular working day she's a member of the state duma. just once but she will always be the first woman in space the fact confirmed by every encyclopedia and internet search engine. still dreams today now she's ready to join an expedition to mars the favors planet even though it would be a one way trip. into my you assume. this is my profession.

it has been since the end of one thousand nine hundred sixty one when i was invited to moscow to go to the selection commission and training. and from one thousand nine hundred sixty to one. today i've been closely involved with this profession and this training center virginia this is been my life but i find i can't imagine living any other. you have to bring your stuff. up.

sometimes you see a story. and then. you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything is. welcome to the big picture.

blogs are going to washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. based edward snowden we now know that the n.s.a. is involved in a far reaching and invasive surveillance program what can we do to rein in our powerful and increasingly corporate sized national security state more with more on that with mike papantonio just a moment also six months after the newtown massacre the n.r.a. is up to its same old scare tactics blasting west virginia senator joe manchin for embracing the obama in toward going to joe look in a new ad released this week what is the n.r.a. more concerned about protecting the american people or propping up.